


Playing the Feud

by Phantom_Kat



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Bromance, Dennis the Menace - Freeform, Gen, Teamwork, awesome friendship, game hopping, magic item
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 05:22:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7421611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantom_Kat/pseuds/Phantom_Kat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes a bored Dan is a dangerous Dan. When he finds a mysterious scratch off ticket there is no question that he and Arin should try their luck. When they are whisked away to some of their most memorable playthroughs, however, they'll need all the luck they can get to make it back home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing the Feud

**Author's Note:**

> I got inspired one night and wrote this up. This will be a fun and silly story I'll write to get my creativity juices flowing. The playthroughs in this story are simply some of my favorite ones.

Dan laid back on the Grump couch, letting his shoulders sag with all of the stress of the day. He let his head fall back onto the couch’s back and stared at the ceiling fan rotating lazily above his head. There was something hypnotic about it, and he felt his eyes grow heavy.

He really needed some food before he collapsed into a deep sleep à la Rip Van Winkle.

Dan forced himself to sit up. With a greater grunt he pushed himself to his feet and stretched out the kinks from every joint he could think off. Each one felt better than the last and gave him a spark of energy he had lost sometime between breakfast and Steam Train.

From where he sat cross-legged on the floor Arin snorted. He pointed up at him, a game disc balanced through his finger. “Geez, old man, need some oil for that body?”

Coming down from a rather elaborate stretch of his arms Dan flopped forward and leveled his friend with a mock glare. He flipped the disc off Arin’s finger and watched with satisfaction as Arin fumbled to catch it. “Hardy had har. We can’t all be spry twenty-something’s.”

Arin caught the game and closed the Wii game case with a definite snap that echoed through room. As Dan sat back on the edge of the couch— seeing Arin struggle with clean up was an enjoyable past time— Arin held up one beefy arm. “Ahh, yes, I am spry. The spryest of them all. The spryest that has ever come and will ever… uhhh, do?”

Dan gave him a mouthful of throw pillow for his trouble. “Good thing we’re off camera ‘cause we’d lose some viewers with that line.”

Arin shrugged off the throw pillow and began rolling up the wires of the SNES controllers. He was doing it all with such deliberate patience, tangled wires and curse words for once absent, that Dan shot up and brushed past him. “Okay, later, Arin. I’m a starving motherfucker that’s going to get some food.”

“Wait, Dan.” Two muted thuds and one that he felt through the hardwood floor made Dan turn around. Arin was lying on his stomach and pathetically reaching out with his hands, controllers abandoned. “Take me with you!”

“Wendy’s is not for mortals such as you.” Dan raised his chin and looked down with as much regality as he could muster.

Arin sat up and brushed back his bangs. “No, actually, I want to grab dinner with you.”

“And Suzy?”

“She’s going to catch some yoga class after this or some shit.” Arin picked up the SNES controllers and the Wii game case, looking over to one of their shelves for their appropriate places. Even with his back turned Dan knew Arin was pouting. “She said they only serve carrot sticks.”

The time between Arin getting up and reaching the shelf was excruciatingly slow for someone who had only a biscuit and some Skittles for breakfast. Dan reached the open doorway and settled for watching Arin as close to the parking lot as possible. “Well then hurry up and clean up so we can grab some artery-clogging food.”

Arin made a noise of agreement as he scanned the Wii games for the appropriate alphabetical spot. Once he found it he looked over his shoulder and said, “Oh yeah, I have to talk to Suzy about what we’re doing for date night this weekend, so,” he paused, noticing Dan’s narrowed eyes, then continued with some weariness, “could you wait for me?”

Dan let himself dramatically sag against the doorway. “Aaaaaarin!” he whined.

“Five minutes, tops.”

Dan straightened. “You owe me a shake, wherever we go.”

A salute was enough to dismiss Dan and let him wander the hallways of the building. The silence was calming, yet it still wavered with the activity of the day. It gave him a spring to his step and propelled him past the offices and into the main lounge where they congregated for get togethers and streaming events. Here the magic of the day was more present. Voices, laughter, and goodbyes settled like magic and traveled down to his bare toes.

Dan hummed a song, something between Arin’s Lady Depp tune and the newest Star Bomb song. The rhythm took him across the room in little twirls that betrayed his previous exhaustion. Dan maneuvered around the central couch and at least two coffee tables before something underfoot had him scrabbling for balance.

“What the fuck?” Dan took a steadying step forward and turned, feeling something stick to his right heel. Bracing himself against the wall he peeled off what seemed like a scratch off ticket.

The unusually blank back had him holding it in both hands. White. Just white. No instructions to mail to some faraway city on the off chance he won something. No list of states where tax would be collected. Dan ran a thumb along it and found it smooth to the touch.

So the instructions hadn’t been rubbed off.

The magic in the air intensified into a jolt that raised goosebumps along his arms. Curiosity piqued, Dan flipped the ticket over.

DIMENSION FUN was printed in cutesy bubble letters against a blue backdrop reminiscent of a Van Gogh painting. Despite holding it right before him Dan found it hard to count exactly how many swirls made up the background. When the inkling of motion seasickness blossomed in his stomach he let his eyes fall to the bottom half.

There wasn’t a single dollar sign on it. Only five, perfectly-intact squares were set under a cryptic message in black: _Where will you end up?_

“Barry?” he called out because only Barry had the incredible, Photoshop-ingenuity to cook up something that gave him the wrong kind of jeebies.

Running the pads of his fingers over the front, though, told him it was very convincing, possibly real. He curled a finger, the urge to scratch and win suddenly rising, but Dan put a lid on it and instead high-tailed it back to the Game Grumps room, the scratch off ticket held out in front of him with nothing short of reverence.

“Arin!” Dan barreled through the doorway and flopped onto the couch, stomach on the arm rest and bare feet dangling. “Drop everything you have and get here now.”

There was a stretch of silence where Arin slowly turned around and pointedly looked down at the SNES console in his hands.

“Don’t drop everything,” Dan amended slowly, letting his chin hit the couch cushions so that he had to stare though his messy curls up at Arin. “Set that aside then come here.”

While Arin set the console on the rug Dan shifted the ticket from one hand to the other, too excited to hold still. The ticket’s colors were even brighter an inch away from his nose, more enticing than any candy. Oddly enough his goosebumps were still on his arms.

“Whatcha got there?”

As Arin sat down the couch shifted, dislodging Dan enough out of his stupor to wiggled forward and sit up.

“This, my friend, is one weird-ass scratch off ticket.”

Arin snatched it before Dan could shove the ticket in his face. The longer he examined it the higher his eyebrows rose to meet his hairline. Finally the pieces came together. “Dude, what the fuck? There are no prizes or anything on this.”

Dan scooted closer, drawn by the ticket and the camaraderie shared between two confused Grumps. Despite Arin’s frown he was still clutching the ticket. Dan prodded it. “Let’s scratch it and see if we win anything.”

Arin turned the ticket between his fingers. His frown morphed into an infectious smirk. “Where the Hell did you find this?”

Dan shrugged, already digging into the pockets of his pants for a coin. “At the floor of the lounge.”

“Barry?”

“Nah, man, I don’t think so. It’s too real.” A penny still covered in lint was eventually dug out. Dan plucked the ticket from Arin’s frozen fingers and laid it on the coffee table. “Ready?”

Arin leaned onto his elbows. “Do the one in the middle ‘cause it’s weird.”

“Right-o.”

The moment the coin touched the square the air in the room grew hot. Dan scratched a couple of lines before he noticed the coin had grown almost uncomfortably warm. When the only word on the square was revealed Dan dropped the burning coin on the floor.

Arin read the word, seemingly paralyzed in his seat: “Menace?”

Dan moved back, but it didn’t stop the heat from skyrocketing and constricting his windpipe. He let out a gasp, then saw black.


End file.
